On Tuesday 30 October we held our final event for the National Year of Reading 2012.

‘Hear It! A panel of guest speakers discussing reading and writing for teenagers’.

Our guest speakers Declan Fay, Tim Pegler and Bec Kavanah were funny, informative and inspiring and the students, parents and staff on the night could not say enough about them. Everyone loved hearing personal stories from each of the speakers about what writing and reading meant to them now, and when they were growing up and at school.

During the course of the evening certain books, authors and websites were mentioned and this post will hopefully provide you with most of that information.
Where possible I have included a link to the author website or where there is none, a link to a website with information or a review on the book. If authors or books listed were also mentioned by another member on the panel their name will be in brackets at the end. Many of these books and authors are available from our library so please come in and ask if you are interested.

Bec and Tim also generously provided us with a list of book recommendations and these can be found on our Book Recommendations page here on the library blog.

“The fault in our stars” is the book about the young girl suffering from cancer. Other titles mentioned : “Paper towns”, “Looking for Alaska”, and “Will Grayson, Will Grayson” (written with David Levithan)

John Green has a video blog with his brother Hank called Vlog Brothers and a Ning called Nerdfighters. They also have a couple of other educational video channels one called Crash Course which features Biology and World history and Hank his brother has a SciShow Channel. I highly recommend John Green as well and love his books. These sites and YouTube channels are funny and informative and I encourage you to check them out.

“The ask and the answer” by Patrick Ness (this is book 2 in the Chaos Walking trilogyclick on this link to read a book review about why the reviewer loved Chaos Walkingbetter than the Hunger games series.) And I agree, one of my favourite series & I would also highly recommend.

Bec also mentioned an online community that helped you find the book that you cannot remember the title or author of but can leave a brief description and other readers will try and help. The site is calledWhat was that book? : This community reunites people with the books they’ve lost!

Voiceworks is a national, quarterly magazine that features exciting new writing by Australian young writers. It is a unique opportunity for young writers and artists (under 25) to publish their poetry, short stories, articles and comics, illustrations, drawings and photos, as well as receiving feedback on their submission. It is produced entirely by young people and relies totally on contributions from the readers to make up the content.

You are very welcome Nick. Enjoy! there are some great titles listed and I would encourage you to check out Patrick Ness, John Green and Markus Zusak in particular – some of my favourite authors/books.